Let the Light In

Chapter 64: Detached

Chapter 64: Detached

The scene Rey was met with was something faraway and detached. The faceless bodies running through doors and down halls moved as ghosts before her eyes, and the sounds of cries and shouted orders were tinny to her ears. The medical wing was pure chaos, but none of it touched Rey. Luke moved her through the bustling forms, a firm hand on her arm, guiding her. Panicked expressions blurred past, and mournful cries pierced every now and then through the dampened wool that seemed to plug her ears.

Those weren't just anyone's cries.

Kima Es, the Kaminoan specialist, flew across the corridor words a huddle of people who were so familiar to Rey.

Leia lifted her head from the clump and caught Rey's dazed stare. There was a figure in her arms, breaking his heart in chest-wracking sobs. He was saying a name, over and over.

Myri.

The figure in Leia's arms was Rem, trying so desperately to get into the operating chamber beyond, where Kima walked out shaking her head. The wordless cries belonged to Poe and Finn, collapsed on the bench against the wall. Rey could not take another step forward as the sounds around her became louder, clearer, and rushed in to cause static in her ears. Her mind was fogged, and Luke's hand on her arm was no longer steering her, but keeping her upright altogether. This was at least till Rey was close enough to the wall to use it as a prop, and Luke shuffled to Leia's side, placing a comforting hand onto Rem's back.

Rey rather suddenly felt like a stranger, and intruder, as no tears sprung to her eyes, and the lump in her throat was swallowed with ease. She was an alien, looking upon the sincere grief before her eyes as if it was a holovid on repeat. Her gaze drifted from the grieving family before her to the similar scenes taking place in front of every door down the corridor. Her head and body followed her hollow stare till she turned on the wall and faced all the way back to the exit. Rey was drawn as if pulled to the salvation of open air, and without thought she began to stumble along the wall back to the open blast doors.

She may have heard someone call her name, but that could have been anything from wishful thinking to a long-dead voice finding home in her head. It was not the voice she wanted, needed, to hear. So Rey paid no heed, and faltered on. Medical droids whizzed around her, and dead eyes jumped out at her from every angle and shadow. The walls themselves were closing in, and the clinically sterilized smell of plasma and oxygen burnt her nose till her hands found purchase on the doorframe. Rey hauled herself out to the courtyard, and leant heavily on a bench, her head lolling against her chest. She breathed heavily, but no air came.

Myri...Myri and how many more?

Rey should have wept. She should be in there, her arms around Rem, or Finn, or Poe. If anything she should at least be standing there, as bereaved as Leia had looked. She should have felt something more than what she did.

But she felt nothing. Nothing bar the claustrophobia that threatened to black out her vision. Rey felt intense guilt for the departing of someone who had shown her kindness when she was thrown to the wolves. A friend. She felt rage at Snoke, for the carnage wrought in his name. She felt bitter disgust at both the First Order and Resistance for the war they fought. Rey blamed herself for not being there to help her. She knew Myri was in the medical wing. She had been told it was not good. She had assumed Myri would make it through like she always did.

Rey was very wrong.

And it hit her hard that this was it. This was why she would never last in a system like this. It was impersonal and cold, till it wasn't. It was all numbers and statistics, till the body of a dear one was lying lifeless before you. And what had you been doing? Fighting for the 'greater good'. Rey had rushed to defend at the front lines, not a stranger to it at all. She could have healed Myri, couldn't she? Who was to know...?